Being prompted by your present trouble, Out He my can ant low a lity Til end you something.
It reminded me inevitably of Coleridge's visitor from Porlock—he who interrupted the writing of "Kubla Khan," and who Paradise should be condemned eternally to rest out of earshot of the angelic choir. I had been smitten with an absorbing passion, and in the intervals of postprandial proof correction was culling from the flower-garden of similes. A tender melancholy beset me, for I on honey-dew had fed And drunk the milk of Paradise.
It was at this point that the boy entered, and obtruded on my reverie his sallow ugliness and truncated English. There was one without, it seemed, desiring speech with me. I half caught a reference to drink, but paid no heed to it. I would go out to this untimely caller, I thought, and he should quail before the white wrath of the interrupted writer. 'Thus do mortals err, and thus, out of vapouring is born an' Event.
went out to where, stacked irregularly in dusty volumes, lies the history of our Settlement, and confronted an uncouth figure. It'was a man, surely, and as ho titmbated he plucked with a dirty hand at those volumes, essaying the perpendicular without success. A red face flamed at me over a tangle of black beard, and all the mud of the Yangtze seemed to cling upon the garments that covered the rest of him, The way of this transuressor had been hard. He had not failed to fall by the way.
"Man," I said, "you are peculiarly and uncommonly' drunks."
He hiccupped gently—thus docs a cat purr when stroked—and in the light of his pleased smile I knew him. It was Boyton, but not the Boyton of my Fleet Street days. That had been a man of. some achievement, and more promise; a man of ready and sometimes a brilliant pen; but a man of a nature so gregarious that the stars in their spheres sang of his certain ruin. Thad left him, as it were, techly stemming the torrent of his own inclinations, and now he was washed up at my feet in this plight. He was a figure of low fun—with matter for tears in pleni Old chap, he gurgled," "Tm the unfor'nate victim of a second marriage; I've taken the daughter of the vine to spouse."
Tt somehow scorned appropriate that he should quote Khayyam. " My dear Boy-ton," I said, "when you divorced old barton Reason costs were evidently given against you."
At this he lurched forward as though to embrace me, but swung round and gripped jolently again at the books. I confess at a loss. There was no precedent in my experience for so absurd a situation. He continued to regard me with the fatuous smile born of inebriety, but said never a word.
"Took here, my dear fellow," I began, but he must have taken alarm at. note of finality I strove to throw into my voice, for his face changed to a solemnity almost portentous.
"Tm a newspaper man," he said, "an you're a newspaper man. I wan' you lock-moup."
In the name of the Municipal Police, what for?" I exclaimed.
"It's very *bsurd, old mau," he answer- laughed "m: ed, "but the truth is, the police are th only people who'll take me at my own Price."
"Tes no use, Boyton," I said, "I would-n't lock you up if you were fifty times as objectionably drunk. Besides, remember that sleeping in police cells is a bad habit, not to be encouraged. Its not nice, you know. People don't do it as a rule.
He drew himself up, and thumped his chest with " force that came perilously near to overbalancing him. "I'm philoso pher," he said. "If Diogenes lived in a beastly tub, why can't I'sleep with the police. I'm better'n Diogenes. He never used a toothbrush."
He put a hand to his pocket, and flourished a toothbrush bald with age, while I fought to keep down my laughter.
"Don't, Boyton," I stuttered. "Leave mo a rag of respect for the ancients."
Again his mood changed, and this time it was a face of ridiculously exaggerated determination that I met. "If you don' lockmeup," he said, "I shall have to sault you."
This was my opportunity for laughter, and I seized it eagerly. I roared in his red face, thrust determinedly at me. The days of fighting editors are dono." Tsai "and I should not lock you up if you did assault me. Besides, you couldn't. even assault a riesha coolie as you are now."
"Could'n' J," he yelled, and struck viously forward. The blow glanced off my shoulder, and I gripped him, turned him about, and ran him out of the door into the rainy night. Down the steps I forced "him and into the road, revolving what I should do. He lurched as he went, so that I had to hold him, and he seemed to have forgotten that a moment before he had struck me in anger. Tags of Latin fell from him—the ingatherings of the study of "Deposuit potentes,"* he exaltavit humlies." I said nothing, and he fell to. it again. "Vacuus cantar coram latrone viator," he declaimed, and then burst into song.
Komm' Midelein Rothe Waengelein Mit de wine-glass in your pas, Well get. troon among do roses, Und po soper in de straw.
I offered inward thanks that none saw or heard us. It seemed that the man was never to leave me. Desert him in the gutter I could not, harbour him in my house I would not—must I walk with t bibulous lunatic down the roads of Eternity And so, he singing with all the might that remained to him, and I alternately wondering and despairing, we came to an hotel. I hauled this sorry philosopher up the steps and into the hall, and held him there for all sce." A grinning boy came up, and I sent for the manager, while Boyton informed me that a "plague of thirst" had descended upon him, and exhorted me to "pour out the Rhine-wine, let it flow." I bade him "Shut up 1" with some asperity, whereat he said I was a poor machine in the grip of convention, and unable to rise to philosophic heights.
The manager came up, and I friend is very drunk. Can you put him up?"
He looked at Boston, who at once made an attempt to embrace him, calling him his dear frien'."
"No, sir," he replied, backing away, "Ym sorry to say we are full."
"Shockin' confeshun," put in that miserable man, shaking an admonitorr finger. "You look heavily sober, thonzh."
T dragged him out again into the rain, tingling with shame. OF my_pilzrimage through that night I cannot write further. Tied to the fiend, I dragged my way to such places as I hope never to sce ud everywhere, looking upon Boyton, they request to scorn. I grew desperate, an insane desire to murder came upon me, while my companion roared his songs to the streaming rain. At last in an alleyway I came upon a house breathing noxious odours, and at an extortionate rate I secured a room. Boyton had by this time decided that he loved me like brother, and refused to part from me. I plucked his hands from my neck, and rushed away, locking the door. Outside the house Tpaused to consider, and_ then walked swiftly, hardly knowing whither. I came out upon the Bund, when the wings of night were lifting off the river. In my hand I felt the key, and J flung it far from me into the water.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.